84 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

I'm about to mash this beer so maybe I'll take a reading at mash temp and another one at room temp. Let's get it on!

[Big Nake]

Okay, moment of truth. I stirred up my mash and took two temp readings with my Thermapen (right between 151.5 and 152 as I was shooting for) and then I dipped in one colorpHast strip and pulled it out. To the best of my ability, I lined up the strip with the color chart and it looks like it is very close to 5.2 pH. The color key on this box of strips jumps from 5.0 to 5.3 and it's right near 5.2 - 5.3. At the same time, I took a small amount (a tsp) of the mash juice and put it on a ceramic plate and left it there for a few minutes and took another reading. The strips look identical. Either the difference is very small or non-existent. Or the test would have to be done under more controlled circumstances. I used a little more calcium chloride in my mash this time (using notes from a previous light-colored batch) and I'm pretty confident that my mash pH is okay. Thanks gang.

[Big Nake]

Also: As I stood there looking at those pH strips, I noticed that the color might have been just a little bit dark (higher pH)... like maybe 5.3, 5.4-ish. For giggles, I took about ¼ tsp of calcium chloride and stirred it into my mash, waited a minute and then took another reading with a new strip. It was just slightly lighter than the other two... possibly closer to 5.2. This probably wasn't necessary but it shows me that these strips appear to be very dependable and pretty sensitive. I will also check the pH of my boil when that begins. Should it be taken when the wort is at a boil or can it just be after all of the runnings have been collected? Cheers guys.

[Stout_fan]

Ken, the problem is you are putting the gelatin in at 55.It will remove all the haze present at 55.Then you chill it and form new haze.The gelatin is at the bottom incapable of clearing your beer.Chill the beer as low as you can get it. Wait for the haze proteins to form, then dose with gelatin.Let it settle out, then transfer to a brite tank, leaving the crap behind.I actually heard this on some podcast, but forget which one, sorry.or you could just serve in frosted etched glassware.Clay pots work well too, I understand.

[Big Nake]

Ken, the problem is you are putting the gelatin in at 55.It will remove all the haze present at 55.Then you chill it and form new haze.The gelatin is at the bottom incapable of clearing your beer.Chill the beer as low as you can get it. Wait for the haze proteins to form, then dose with gelatin.Let it settle out, then transfer to a brite tank, leaving the crap behind.I actually heard this on some podcast, but forget which one, sorry.or you could just serve in frosted etched glassware.Clay pots work well too, I understand.

Yes, I plan to use gel at my normal time but then I plan to add a small amount of gel solution to the chilled keg, before the beer is carbed. Personally, I'm cringing at the thought of adding gel to the keg, but I have no other way to chill the beer & keep it cold other than in a keg so that's my plan. Cheers.

[Big Nake]

Just took a pH reading of all of my runnings after adding some small kettle additions of CaCl and gypsum and it looks like it's dead on 5.2 according to the strip. This would have been at 175°ish. Seem good?

[BrewerGeorge]

Sounds good, but be careful with all those salt additions or you might end up with minerally-tasting beer. Trying to get a 12 SRM water down to a 4 SRM beer with just salts - no dilution or acid - and you're getting into the range of salts where they become a seasoning as well as a chemistry set. Now that you're getting into water, I suggest you look at adding acids as well as salts. I have very hard water suitable for beers in the low 20's SRM, but I can make a 5 or 6 SRM beer just by adding 4-5 ml of 88% lactic acid. If you're afraid of the lactic tang in the beer (I've heard some people say they can taste it; I cannot.) a weak HCL works well and adds just a bit of chloride. The point is, don't avoid acids, they are a nice tool to go along with your salts to help you fine-tune the flavor aspect of beer salts.

[Big Nake]

Sounds good, but be careful with all those salt additions or you might end up with minerally-tasting beer. Trying to get a 12 SRM water down to a 4 SRM beer with just salts - no dilution or acid - and you're getting into the range of salts where they become a seasoning as well as a chemistry set. Now that you're getting into water, I suggest you look at adding acids as well as salts. I have very hard water suitable for beers in the low 20's SRM, but I can make a 5 or 6 SRM beer just by adding 4-5 ml of 88% lactic acid. If you're afraid of the lactic tang in the beer (I've heard some people say they can taste it; I cannot.) a weak HCL works well and adds just a bit of chloride. The point is, don't avoid acids, they are a nice tool to go along with your salts to help you fine-tune the flavor aspect of beer salts.

Thanks George. Yeah, I plan to look into acids the next time I hit the LHBS. Btw, I did dilute with some distilled water in the mash so all of my tap water numbers were lowered a little bit. The EZ_water sheet tells me that my calcium number is 116 (good range is 50-150) and all of my other numbers are in check as well. Cheers.

[BlKtRe]

Less than .35 at most with colorfast strips. I question if PH paper can even read that amount accurately. Im betting your in range no matter what temp the strips are read at.

I go back to this.Now talking about salts and acids and how to use them to adjust PH is good stuff. But as long as your in range throughout the sparge, do you really think you will be able to tell a difference on the tongue of +/- .3 or even a little more? Serious question Btw...

[Big Nake]

I go back to this.Now talking about salts and acids and how to use them to adjust PH is good stuff. But as long as your in range throughout the sparge, do you really think you will be able to tell a difference on the tongue of +/- .3 or even a little more? Serious question Btw...

I agree. No, you probably couldn't tell. But my original issue was how far off is my mash pH, really? I had no way to tell. I now know that if I dilute with some distilled water and I make a light-colored beer, I need a good 4½ to 5 grams of CaCl in my mash to reach a good pH. I have used quite a bit less than that in the past and I was probably mashing with a high pH, possibly causing a lot of haze, I assume.

[BlKtRe]

I agree. No, you probably couldn't tell. But my original issue was how far off is my mash pH, really? I had no way to tell. I now know that if I dilute with some distilled water and I make a light-colored beer, I need a good 4½ to 5 grams of CaCl in my mash to reach a good pH. I have used quite a bit less than that in the past and I was probably mashing with a high pH, possibly causing a lot of haze, I assume.

Out of curiosity, when you blow a keg, is there any white film on the inside of it that needs to be scrubbed off?

[davelew]

I go back to this.Now talking about salts and acids and how to use them to adjust PH is good stuff. But as long as your in range throughout the sparge, do you really think you will be able to tell a difference on the tongue of +/- .3 or even a little more? Serious question Btw...

You won't be able to tell a single error of +/-.3 (at least, I can't), but you might be able to tell multiple errors as they stack up. If you add a +.3 error because of temp, a +.3 error in reading the strip, and a +.3 error from measuring out salts incorrectly, it starts to become significant. Sometimes it can be easier to solve a bunch of small problems instead of a single big one, and it all adds up to the same result.

[Big Nake]

Out of curiosity, when you blow a keg, is there any white film on the inside of it that needs to be scrubbed off?

No, I do not have a white film on the inside of my kegs. What are you thinking... hard water deposits?

[Big Nake]

Btw, there was a bizarre twist and a shifting of gears on this beer. CLICK.

[BarelyBrews]

This thread makes me glad i work in a lab,we measure PH easily.The PH strips seemed to suck,i have a jar of the strips in my brewers closet.

[Big Nake]

Ken, I have another theory that I know your just dying to hear ,but are you sure you are getting a complete conversion in your mash? Could it be that there are some residual starches caused by your high PH or temp being off? I can only assume you are mashing for the full 60 mins as well,but next batch use the iodine test to make sure its fully converted. i know that spreadsheet gets it pretty darn close but not exactly perfect sometimes. I use the same spreadsheet and occasionally it puts my mash PH a little low and I have to correct it with the appropriate salts.

All of my mashes are 60 minutes and many of them are 90. Not because I'm a stickler for 90-minute mashes, but it just happens that way sometimes. My only issue with this theory is that my amber-colored beers go through the same process and they are so clear, it's unreal. I have an amber lager on tap right now (Pub Lager) and it's SRM 7 or 8 and it's really, really clear. Before I made this beer yesterday, I went back and looked at my notes for a beer I made earlier this spring (light colored) that came out pretty clear, eventually. My notes showed that I used 1 tsp of calcium chloride in the mash (this must have been before I started weighing out salts in grams). A tsp is about 4 grams of CaCl and I realized that I hadn't used that much CaCl in my mash for awhile. So my guess is that I have just been low on calcium. The problem there is that adding more calcium compounds my low sulfate problem and then I feel like I have to balance it. I'm considering using more calcium in my mash (and checking the pH) and if everything is good with that, instead of using gypsum or epsom salt to balance it, I may just try to balance it with hops instead to get around the overly-malty pofile of my water. I feel like the water is getting a little deep lately.

[Malzig]

You won't be able to tell a single error of +/-.3 (at least, I can't), but you might be able to tell multiple errors as they stack up. If you add a +.3 error because of temp, a +.3 error in reading the strip, and a +.3 error from measuring out salts incorrectly, it starts to become significant. Sometimes it can be easier to solve a bunch of small problems instead of a single big one, and it all adds up to the same result.

The 0.3 pH temperature effect on the strips is a shift, not an error (as in standard error), so I don't think it would be considered additive.Kai Troester discovered that ColorpHast strips have some peculiarities that you need to keep in mind when using them to test mash pH:• There's a shift in the chemistry of the indicators used on the strips that parallels the pH change with temperature. So, that they read about the same at mash pH as at room temp., as Ken discovered.• They read about 0.3 low in the mash pH range.So, a reading of 5.2 (taken at either room temp. or mash temp.) indicates a pH of 5.5±0.3 at room temp.e and 5.2±0.3 at mash temp. (if you choose to believe that the pH drops by 0.3 at mash temp.)

[Big Nake]

Ok. first of all if you are just noticing the problem in your light colored beers, you are using the spreadsheet, and you don't actually check the PH, I'd say that the PH and or the RA is probably off. If you just use the spreadsheet to determine the proper slats to achieve the proper RA for the color, you can still continue to do the same thing and just add additional calcium if you believe that's the problem. The sheet should still get you very close only if you are plugging in the correct numbers (mash in water and sparge water volumes for example). Unless your base water has changed somehow. Is your Ward Labs test recent? About the deep water thing...me too. I cant stop reading about water chemestry lately and have been trying to apply it to make better beers. I think my beers are better lately than they ever have been because of that.

Matt: My Ward Labs numbers are not recent. Probably 5 years old or so. I did see another local brewer who submitted water to Ward Labs and the numbers were right there, just a tick off on this or that. I trust the EZ_Water sheet and I like the way it works. I now have the colorpHast strips and this light-colored beer I made yesterday had a good pH on the mash and the boil. I think that the combination of the sheet and the strips, I can feel like I have a little better control over things. I have my numbers punched into the sheet and I always make sure that I have the dilution right and all of that. I have a cream ale on tap right now that tastes good but it has not cleared and the keg has been on tap for 2-3 weeks and it's probably only ¼ full. Somehow, I really screwed the pooch on this beer and I don't know why (clarity-wise). But on every light-colored beer I make from now on, I will dilute with some amount of distilled, I will check the pH of the mash and boil and I will also add a gel solution to the keg (after chilling but before carbing) and see if I can get around this. You guys gave me a lot of great ideas and things to try. Cheers.